


Day of the Change

by Nochi



Series: Rita's Successor [1]
Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Post-Movie, magically-induced transformation, rita smash the patriarchy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 09:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nochi/pseuds/Nochi
Summary: In her final moments, Rita laid a curse on her power stone, letting it fall to earth to continue her work.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A commission from Tumblr! They graciously allowed me to post this here. Sam is their OC.

Sam shielded his eyes to watch the rock he’d kicked go soaring across the glade. “That’s a record,” he told himself. “Almost definitely.” And he set about finding another rock to kick.

It wasn’t a normal hobby of his, kicking rocks in the forest. He’d much rather have been at home, or even at a coffee shop or something, on a computer. But so much of Angel Grove was still being rebuilt, after what most people were still just calling The Attack, that there wasn’t really anywhere  _ quiet _ . The areas that weren’t under construction were crowded and busy, and sometimes he just wanted to be by himself. To not feel like he was putting on an act.  _ Home _ definitely didn’t fit that description.  _ Home  _ was why he was out here in the first place.

_ Sam jumped out of his chair, pumping both fists into the air. “Yes!” The program that had given him so much trouble for the last week was finally running the way it was meant to, and maybe even a little better. He spun around, shooting finger guns at the monitor, feeling the joy of victory over a stubborn bit of software bubble up inside him. _

_ His father’s head came around the doorway, a scowl firmly in place. “What the hell are you doing? Quit making all that racket.” _

“ _ I got it working,” Sam responded, waving a hand at the computer. The effervescent joy he’d been feeling was already fading in the face of his father’s scowl, however, and he felt his own face settling into a neutral mask. _

“ _ Doesn’t mean you gotta bounce around like some goddamn cheerleader.” _

“ _ Right. Sorry.” He slumped back into the chair, staring at the screen as his father wandered away. “Maybe I will be a cheerleader,” he muttered mutinously, once he was sure he wouldn’t be heard. “What then?” _

So, the forest. The mountain was always quiet. The trees didn’t care. And if the rocks objected to being kicked, well, they should say something.

He spotted a nice-size chunk of granite, sticking up out of the ground, and drew his foot back to send it flying. Then, a flash of green, just barely peeking up out of the dirt, caught his attention and made him stumble as he aborted the kick. Instead he dropped to his knees, pushing his sweater sleeves up, and brushed dirt away from around the stone. Brilliant, translucent green, more of it the farther he dug, Eventually it came loose, a shining green crystal of some kind that just about fit in the palm of his hand. It was warm to the touch, despite having been mostly shielded from the sun, and there was something inside it. Some sort of shape he couldn’t quite make out, distorted by the facet on the green stone.

A sudden noise made him look up, flicking hair out of his face. A group of people, coming through the trees, talking and laughing with each other. Panic rose in his throat and he shoved the stone in his pocket, feeling its warmth even through the denim. He had just stood fully upright when the group broke through the trees and into the clearing.

“- construction’s driving me nuts,” one of them said, a taller boy in a red hoodie, who was walking backwards to speak to the rest of the group. “We gotta get an access road or something.”

Another member of the group, African-American with some kind of metal device in his hands, stopped in his tracks and pointed at Sam. “Jason. Jason.”

“What, Billy?” The others had stopped now too, and the one in front – Jason – turned to face him. Mild curiosity snapped into an almost hostile expression immediately, and Sam resisted the urge to take a step back.

“’Sup,” he said neutrally. The stone in his pocket was getting  _ warmer _ , almost uncomfortably so, and he tried not to fidget.

“Hey,” Jason called back. “Sorry, man, we weren’t expecting anybody to be up here.”

Sam shrugged. “Must have missed the signs.”

A frown, at that. “Signs?”

“Yeah, I didn’t see anything about the Nature Exploration and Ethnic Diversity Club meeting out here.” There, that was  _ definitely _ a hostile expression. Sam flashed a quick smile, just a brief show of teeth. “S’a joke, bro. I’ll get out of your way.”

“Yeah, alright.” Sam walked deliberately past the group, shoving his hands in his pockets half to look nonchalant and half to get the stone away from his leg. He pulled it out of his pocket once he was well past them, tossing it between his hands in an attempt to cool it off.

“Fucking jocks,” he muttered to himself, because of course it was Jason Scott, king of both football and fucking up, if the rumor mill was to be believed. His mind flashed through the other faces, all familiar from school hallways but without names to put to any of them. He turned them over in his mind, trying to discern what reason they’d possibly have to be out in the woods together at basically dark, but when the only things he could come up with were “druid initiation” and “orgy”, he abandoned the line of thought and focused on getting home.

He put the stone on his bedside table that night, oddly enamored with the lustrous green color. It had finally cooled off when he was well away from the druid orgy club initiation, and sat there on the table like a perfectly ordinary stone that didn’t heat up when faced with large groups of teenagers.

He folded his glasses beside it, curling up under the sheets of his bed, and went to sleep.

_Pain._

_ Stabbing, throbbing, agonizing pain, everywhere, everything. Sky and clouds rushing past, wind whistling so loudly as to drown out all else. _

_ Failure. Again. No crystal, no planet. Zordon’s pretenders, successors of the Rangers that once were. She had no successor. Her power would die with her. _

_ No. There was a chance. So little power left, so much pain to fight through. Clenching the stone in her fist she poured her will into it, as the clouds thinned, then the atmosphere. There will be another. The power will go on. But no man will hold this title, no man will wear my armor. Only a woman can carry my rage into the next era. Only a woman can defeat Zordon’s pride. _

_ She released the stone, as the stars took her. Her last sight was it plummeting towards Earth, and her last thoughts were triumphant. _

Sam woke slowly, growing slowly aware of a full-body sort of soreness that didn’t seem to have a source. He groaned in pain as he rolled over, letting a hand flop onto his chest.

His eyes opened. Staring at the ceiling, he moved his hand slightly to the left. Then the right. Yeah, those definitely hadn’t been there the day before.

“Sam?”

Sam snatched the covers up as the door opened and his dad poked his head in. “Yeah?”

“I’m goin’ out. Probably gonna be over a week this time. You know how to take care of yourself.”

“Y-yeah, dad.”  _ Be careful _ , he thought, but didn’t say it. His dad didn’t appreciate what he called “needless sentimentality” from his son.

His dad paused, frowned. “Did you shave?”

Sam paused, carefully moving a hand to his chin. Where there had previously been a light beard was now smooth skin.

“Kind of,” he said slowly. His dad snorted.

“Babyface. Alright, see you in a few days.”

“Alright, dad.”  _ Love you _ .

His dad shut the door behind him, and Sam laid in bed until he heard the truck start up and pull away. Once the rumbling was at least partially down the street, he leapt out of bed and ran for the bathroom.

“Fuck,” he whispered at his reflection. “What the fuck?” Under the tank top he normally wore to bed was the slight swell of breasts. His boxers hung weirdly on his hips, as slight curves had replaced what had once been smooth planes. And, with a somewhat bewildered grimace, he reached down to find a distinct absence of flesh where there had once been between his legs. Hair was the same length. Beard was gone, as previously noted. But otherwise…

“Fuck,” he repeated, finding himself at a complete lack for any other sentiment. How did someone even react to this? Gibbering insanity seemed reasonable, but he couldn’t even muster that. He just stared, dumbstruck, at his reflection. He was even hesitant to swear anymore, as even his voice was different, lighter in tone than he’d ever heard come out of his own face.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, a glint of light. Looking down for the source, he saw the green stone, sitting on the counter next to the sink. “What…how…” He hadn’t taken the stone with him in his mad dash. He hadn’t even remembered it existed until just this moment. Carefully, he reached out and laid his hand on it. It was slightly warm, and as he picked it up he felt a surge of triumph. Like yesterday with the computer, but…more, and definitely not his own. All his emotions at the moment could be summed up with four-letter words.

“There’s no way,” he muttered, turning the stone over in his hands. “That was just a...a stress dream. Nightmares from the attack. Lots of people are having them.” There were ads all over town urging people to seek counseling if they needed help dealing with the attack of the 50-foot whatever that had ravaged the town shortly after Sam and his father had moved there.

_ No man will wear my armor, _ his mind echoed, and he frowned at the stone. “That means  _ nothing _ . That’s – it’s nonsense.”

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything had started once he’d found the stone. It seeming to heat itself up once that group had shown up on the mountain. The weird dream. His spontaneously growing breasts and losing his dick.

No. None of that felt right anymore.  _ She. Her _ . Sam rolled the words over, seeing if they fit with the new image in the mirror. Finding that they did, she took a deep breath, and looked down at the stone in her hand.

“Fine,” she said out loud to no one. “But breakfast first.”


	2. Chapter 2

Not owning anything that could reasonably be used as a bra, Sam settled for layering a couple of tank tops under her t-shirt and sweater. Her jeans fit oddly, and she tried not to walk like too much of a weirdo to the nearest open coffee shop. Hunched over, pretending it was from the weight of her backpack and not to disguise her new physique. The Krispy Kreme had been closed since the attack, so a locally-owned place was doing booming business. She slipped to the back of the line, head down, trying not to draw too much attention. Not so much because of her new look as out of a force of habit, really – not talking to people meant not pretending.

She made it to the front of the line without having to look up from her phone, and muttered her order quickly.

“Sorry, hon, you’re gonna have to speak up,” the harried barista said, fingers hovering over the register.

“S-sorry,” Sam stammered, repeating herself more audibly. The barista punched her order in and moved off to make it, as she shifted to the side counter. She’d never had an issue with how she placed her order before. But her voice  _ was _ lighter, and maybe she was speaking more softly than she intended, out of self-consciousness.

“Here you go.” Her coffee was deposited in front of her, and she flashed a quick grin up at the barista before taking it. The woman paused, smiling back slightly. “You have a really nice smile.”

Warmth flooded her cheeks, and she gave another, more sheepish smile. “Thanks.” That had never happened before, either. Usually when she smiled people either thought she was on some kind of upper or being fake. But now, on this face, it was  _ nice _ .

Riding the small high of an unexpected compliment, Sam made her way out of the crowded shop. She had a very distinct destination in mind, and she made a direct line for it, heading out of town and towards the mountain.

The sandwich disappeared before she was halfway there, the coffee shortly afterwards, and she stashed the garbage in her backpack for later disposal. By the time she’d reached the clearing she’d resorted to a bag of trail mix she kept in there for that exact reason – she was never sure when her body was going to demand to be fed. Some things, it seemed, never changed.

Once there, she settled in the middle of the clearing. The hole she’d dug was still there, a shallow divot in the grass. She pulled the stone out of her backpack – she’d opted to avoid keeping it near her legs, this time – and set it on the ground in front of her.

“Alright,” she said out loud, crossing her legs and leaning forward with her chin on her hands. She readjusted as her breasts were uncomfortably squashed by her arms, then glared at the stone. “Explain yourself.”

Nothing. Though the rock up and speaking to her would be about par for the course of the morning, she was pretty sure. She picked it up again and turned it over and over in her hand, frowning at it. She’d been so sure that something would happen when she brought it here. That this was the origin of everything, and some spectacular event would explain what was going on.

“I changed my mind,” she heard in a low mutter from near the trees. “We need a gate.”

She jumped up, stone still in her hand, to find the Druid Orgy standing on the edge of the clearing and eyeing her suspiciously.

“Morning,” she called over. Jason Scott just crossed his arms and – it was hard to tell from this distance, but she was pretty sure –  _ glowered _ at her. “Didn’t know these woods were posted.” She bit back the urge to repeat her ribbing from the day before. They didn’t need to know it was the same person, that might make them suspicious, and she  _ really _ didn’t feel like dealing with that right now.

A tall Asian boy leaned over and smacked Jason on the arm, muttering something Sam couldn’t hear, but the other boy relaxed his aggressive stance, at least a bit.

“Just passing through,” she called, and started forward to do just that.

“Jason.” A girl pushed her way to the front. Short brown hair, pink Chucks –  _ is that Kimberly Hart?  _ “Look.” And she pointed at Sam’s left hand.

Too late, she shifted it behind her back; the group was on her way faster than should have been possible.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Who are you?”

“Who gave that to you?”

The questions overlapped as they all shouted over each other. Someone grabbed her arm. She yanked, but the grip was like steel.

“What the fuck,” she shouted, trying to twist out of reach. “Get off of me!”

“We gotta take her to Zordon.” That, from somewhere behind her. A girl’s voice, not Kimberly’s, somewhat strained with panic.

“You’re not  _ taking _ me anywhere!”

Heat, from the stone in her hand. Up her arm, through her shoulders. Blinding, searing heat down every nerve and across every muscle. A scream she belatedly realized was coming from her. There were still people on every side of her, everything was too much and too close and too strong and she threw her arms out and  _ shoved _ .

Two people flew. She spun around, shoved someone else in the chest, watched with a detached bewilderment as they, too, flew across the clearing. Someone grabbed her from behind, around her backpack, trying to pin her arms. She shoved back with her legs, throwing them both into a tree, which splintered at the impact.

There was a pained  _ oof _ of air being knocked out of lungs, and Sam ran forward, away from her attacker. She crossed the clearing with what felt like two strides, stopping at the opposite tree line to lean against a nearby trunk. The heat was fading and there was just  _ pain _ , everywhere. Like the dream. Breathing was hard. Her vision was swimming, wavy lines in front of her as she tried to stagger forward. The pain was too much, her strength was too little, as she felt her body finally give up and collapse to the ground. She heard footsteps behind her before everything went black.

Voices, foggy and distant, like listening from another room. Pain, heat, still blossoming through her body. Sam opened her eyes slowly, groaning as the light seemed to stab through them, and lifted an aching arm to block them.

“You’re awake.” She looked over, her head and neck protesting the movement, to see Jason Scott sitting on a metallic bench. The whole room, from what Sam could see, was made of that same metal.

“What happened? Where am I?” Is what she  _ tried _ to say. What came out was more of a low croaking noise. She cleared her throat, wincing at the rawness there, and tried again.

“Where you are doesn’t matter,” Jason interrupted. “As to what happened…we were hoping you could tell us.” He gestured to the stone, lying next to Sam’s head. “Where’d you find that?”

“In the clearing,” Sam said. She rolled to her side, intending to sit up, but a fresh wave of pain bloomed and she sagged against the table she was lying on. “Where you jumped me.”

“We didn’t – “ The defensive retort was cut off by a sharp sigh, and Jason stood. “That thing is dangerous.”

“It’s a rock.”

Jason lifted an eye. “And nothing weird has happened to you since you found it?”

Sam dropped her eyes. “No.”

“Really.” Jason held up a small card. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a twin brother?”

Squinting at Jason’s hand, Sam saw her ID card – with a picture of how she’d looked until this morning.

“Maybe,” she said flatly. “What’s it to you?”

Jason took a deep breath, and seemed to be trying to control his temper. “Look, that  _ rock _ was involved in the attack on the city. If it’s…affecting you, you need to tell us, before anything else happens.”

Sam had just laid her hand on the stone, and picked it up now, staring at it. The words from her dream flashed through her head again –  _ Failure. Zordon’s pretenders. _ Then, from the clearing,  _ we gotta take her to Zordon. _

“Who’s Zordon?” she asked, not looking up.

“What?” Sam looked up then, into Jason’s face.

“Zordon. You said before, one of you did, that you had to bring me to Zordon. You knocked me out –“

“We didn’t – “

Sam raised her voice over Jason’s, hearing it grow almost shrill with the increased volume. “You knocked me out, dragged me to your weird ass metal interrogation room, and went through my shit. And now you’re telling me this rock – “ She held it up, stopping short of chucking it at the boy. “This rock was involved in the Attack of the Fifty-Foot Whatever. And that somehow that justifies you doing everything I just said.”

“Look – it’s a really complicated – “

“I’m smart,” she said bluntly. “Explain it to me.”

Jason seemed to deflate a little. He turned to the wall, back to Sam, away again. Finally, he spoke. “If you can walk, follow me.”


	3. Chapter 3

She was a little unsteady on her feet at first, having to fight both the exhaustion from having passed out and her body’s instinctive recalibration to a body that didn’t fit its parameters. But she followed Jason through a door she hadn’t seen before, down a long hallway, tripping a couple of times as she stared, dumbstruck, at her surroundings.

“What is this?” she managed to ask once.

“An alien spaceship from before humanity existed.”

“Fuck off.”

“Hey, you asked.”

They wound up in a large, round room, centered around some kind of raised console. The rest of the group from the clearing was there, each of them with a stony expression except Billy, who looked around at the others with concern as Sam and Jason entered.

“She doesn’t know anything,” he told the others.

“He,” Kimberly corrected, before looking at Sam. “Isn’t it?”

Sam thought about that for a moment, and finally answered with a bewildered shrug.

“ _ Sam, _ ” Jason said pointedly. “Doesn’t know anything.”

“Where do we even start?” Billy asked quietly, still with that look of quiet consternation.

“Rita.” The answer came from a shorter girl, long dark hair topped with a beanie. Her expression was even more sour than the rest of the group’s. “We start with Rita.”

The name tugged at something in Sam’s mind, and she tried to follow it but it dissipated too quickly. Shaking her head, she found what looked like a bench nearby and sat heavily. Her body still felt worn out.

“Educate me,” she said simply.

The group shared looks with each other, and finally Jason started to speak.

“As it was told to us, everything started when dinosaurs were still around.”

Forty-five minutes later. Sam had moved from the bench to the floor. Her legs were pulled up to her chest, which was more uncomfortable than she’d expected, but found himself unable to break the pose. The stone was sitting on the floor in front of her, even though it made her sick to the stomach to look at it. Having it in her pocket, on her person, was worse.

“So,” she said quietly, clearing her throat until she could raise her voice. “So,” she said again. “This is a spaceship.”

“Yes,” Jason said quietly. He, and all the others, were sitting in a semi-circle around her. Not close enough to make her feel trapped, but enough that she was aware of their presence.

“The…person responsible for the attack on the city. She had this stone. She used it to make that thing.”

“It’s where she drew her power from, yeah.” Kimberly’s voice was quiet. The other girl, still in the back, looked away.

Sam stared at it, swallowing hard as her stomach twisted again. “You guys all have stones too. You’re the ones who stopped her.”  _ Zordon’s pretenders _ , she thought, but didn’t say.

“Yes.” That from the tall Asian boy. She was going to have to get some names eventually, she thought distantly.

“The Zordon you guys keep mentioning. He was her…boss?”

Jason shifted uncomfortably, for some reason. “Team leader,” he corrected. Kimberly smiled, a little.

Sam took her glasses off, rubbing at her face. There was a pressure behind her eyes like a migraine, or like she was going to cry, and only nearly two decades of social training was keeping back – barely. She’d gone to the mountain for answers. These guys had given her more information than she’d ever expected to get. Trying to process it make her brain feel overclocked, like she had a hard drive that just couldn’t keep up and blue smoke was about to start pouring out of her ears.

She wasn’t sure what was keeping her from telling them. That she’d heard Rita – she was sure now, that she was the voice in her dream, hers was the power that had…changed her. Maybe it was the look on the dark-haired girl’s face. Maybe it was the way no one looked at Billy for the entire middle of their story.

“I…I have to go,” she mumbled, staggering to her feet…and throwing himself four feet through the air. “What the  _ fuck _ ,” she said from where she landed on her back.

“We tried to tell you,” Kimberly said, not unkindly. “The stones gave us…enhancements. Strength, speed. It’s hard to control at first.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice it before now,” Jason said, moving to help her out of the floor. “You knocked us pretty far in the clearing.”

“I didn’t  _ have _ it before then,” she protested, steadying himself on her feet. “I just woke up, you know.” She gestured at himself. “Then you knocked me out in the woods, and I woke up feeling like I got hit by a train.”

Another glance went around the group. That was starting to get really irritating.

“It’s a threat response,” Billy said suddenly.

“What?” Sam stared at her.

“We  _ did  _ get hit by a train,” Billy said excitedly. “We found the stones in the mine and security started coming after us so we were all trying to get away in my van, but it got stuck on the tracks, but we all woke up in our beds, only with all these muscles and stuff.” It was one long, running statement, and Sam squinted a little as she tried to parse it into individual facts.

“So when you beat me up in the woods – “

“Will you  _ stop _ ,” Jason interrupted, sounding exasperated, but Sam flapped a hand at him to shut up.

“When you beat me up in the woods, whatever  _ superpowers _ you have, I got? Because I thought you were going to kill me?”

“Or Rita’s still in that stone,” the dark-haired girl said acidly. “And she was reacting to us. Since we slapped her into fucking space.”

The words from the dream poured through her head again as she met her cold glare. It was really annoying, she decided, to have to contend with their hatred for someone she’d never even met, to be tied up in this… _ whatever _ it was she’d stumbled into. Never mind having  _ her _ hatred in her head, pouring through her every time she looked at them. Hunger clawed at her stomach, irritation burned through her mind, and she let out a huffy sigh.

“I’m out,” she said flatly. “I’ll figure something out. I’m not gonna stay here and get harassed by a bunch of space police LARPers for shit I don’t even know anything about.” She turned on her heel, carefully controlling her actions.

“You can’t,” Kimberly blurted. She looked at her over her shoulder, arching one eyebrow.

“Oh? You gonna knock me out again and stick me back in your creepy metal interrogation room?”

Behind Kimberly, Jason just threw his hands up in exasperation.

“We can’t morph,” she said. “The morphing grid – the thing that lets us be the Rangers – it recognizes that Rita no longer has the stone, but that you’re not…meshed with us.”

Sam pinched the bridge of her nose. Started to speak, shut her mouth again, and just sat there for a long moment, still fighting hunger and a migraine and feeling like she was going to burst into angry, frustrated tears at any moment.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” That was a new voice, and she looked up to find the source. Which turned out to be a small, bipedal  _ robot _ , shuffling into the room with a kind of hunched-over walk that would have been comical if Sam wasn’t halfway through a panic attack just at the sight.

“Oh, what the fuck is  _ this _ ,” she protested. “Space alien robot?!”

“Correct!” the robot said triumphantly. “Alpha 5, to be exact. Now, what Kimberly is trying to explain to you is  _ this _ .” It stepped up to a console in the center of the room, and a ball of light appeared in midair. Sam stepped towards it, almost involuntarily.

“This is…that thing you said?”

“The morphing grid,” Kimberly repeated softly. “We have to kind of….be in _harmony_ for it to work.” And as Sam looked, there was indeed a dissonance running through it, a discordant, jittering sort of static to the visual. _That’s_ _me_ , she thought distantly.

“Sam.” Another new voice, soft in tone but almost unbearably loud in volume. She looked up, and promptly flailed backwards, landing on her ass on the floor. Again. Taking up the entire back wall of the room was a  _ face _ , a giant face, made up of hundreds – thousands? – of individual pedestals. The face was immediately familiar to her, though she’d never seen it before in her life, and she fought down the rising, burning hatred in her mind that was not hers.

“Zordon,” she whispered.

“Rita was not the only threat to this world,” Zordon said. “The Rangers  _ need _ to be ready.  _ You _ need to be ready. You’re one of them, now.”

“You don’t get to decide that!” Sam shouted. The tears had escaped now, flowing down her cheeks, and she clenched her jaw tight. “You can’t just –  _ conscript _ me just because you’ve got a robot and a big fucking face-wall!”

She stood and fled down the hallway, hearing Kimberly and Jason call out behind her, and Zordon telling them to let her go. She found the room with her stuff in it, and grabbed a protein bar out of her pack as she went, feeling an almost impulsive need to calm her stomach before she could deal with anything else.

The metal hallways eventually gave way to a rock cave, a twisting passageway that opened up into a cavern. The light was odd there, natural sunlight but filtered through something, giving it an odd, wavy quality.

It was water, she realized as she looked up. Water, suspended over the cavern by some invisible force. She panicked looking up at it, sure it would flood the cave and drown her at any moment, and she retreated back to the entrance of the ship.

That was where Jason found her, slumped on the floor, gnawing on a second power bar.

“Change your mind?” he asked. Sam squinted up at her.

“I regret to inform you that there’s a big fucking lake over your prison compound,” she said flatly.

Jason’s eyes widened in surprise, and he seemed to be forcing himself not to laugh. “We usually just jump through it.”

Sam narrowed her eyes further, then dropped her head onto her knees.

“Fine,” she said, muffled by her jeans. “Fine, you got me. I am an idiot in your superheroic ways.” She stood, grabbing her pack. “Besides, sitting here thinking about it, you guys and your robot and your face wall might have the only answers about…” Another gesture down at her torso.

“Do you want to change back?” The question was delicately asked, and Sam found she appreciated that.

“…I don’t know. I gotta figure something out before my dad gets back in, though.”

Jason winced a little in sympathy. “I hear you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Names, finally, for the two she hadn’t recognized. Trini and Zack. Trini still glared at her every time the two made eye contact, but didn’t seem to be overtly hostile anymore. Maybe they’d had a family meeting when she’d run off, before.

“Rita’s magic is not entirely known to me,” Zordon said, once the six of them had gathered again. “She learned many things once she separated from us that we would not have considered acceptable, ourselves.”

“Do you remember anything?” Kimberly asked. “After you picked up the stone, but before this morning?”

“Well, it got super hot when I saw you guys yesterday,” she said. Zack, in the background, snapped his fingers and pointed at her enthusiastically.

“I  _ knew _ I recognized that picture! You guys didn’t believe me.”

Trini slapped him in the arm to shut him up. “So it  _ is _ reacting to us.”

“I think so,” Sam said slowly. Trini wasn’t going to like this next part. “Last night, I…I dreamed. About Rita. I didn’t know it was her then,” she added quickly. Sure enough, Trini’s face was growing stormy. “She talked about…legacy. Her power was going to die with her, while the other Rangers’ would go on.” She scrunched up her face, trying to remember. “She called you ‘Zordon’s pretenders’. Said ‘no man’ would wear her armor.” On the wall behind Alpha, Zordon’s visage flickered, almost imperceptibly.

“So when you, a man, picked up the stone…” Jason trailed off, shaking his head. “Shit.”

“I feel that,” Sam said dryly.

“Maybe morphing would undo it?” Billy asked. Everyone looked around at him. “I mean, the…spell? The spell seemed to override the super-strength part of the initial transformation, right, so maybe morphing would override  _ that _ , as the morphing grid resets itself to include Sam.”

Sam held her hands up defensively. “Hey, I still don’t know if I  _ want  _ to be included in this,” she said quickly. “I picked up a rock and got beat up in the woods.”

Another of those irritating group glances. “Well, regardless,” Jason said, “You’re gonna have to learn some control over the strength.”

“Should I set up the sparring program?” Alpha asked brightly.

“Sparring?” Sam was looking around now, a little panicked. “I don’t fight.”

“Dude, there is a tree in that clearing that would  _ not _ have an open-casket funeral,” Zack pointed out. “You are hellishly strong. You’re gonna break shit if you don’t learn how to control it.”

Sam looked down at her hands. Smaller, more slender than the day before. But what she remembered of the clearing – the way she’d essentially  _ flown _ across it when she kicked away – put truth to what they were saying.

“Alright,” she sighed. “Fine. But just to control it. I’m not gonna fight any giant gold whatthefucks.”

A shudder seemed to go around the room. “Hopefully none of us are,” Kimberly muttered.

“Also, I  _ desperately _ need to eat first.” She laid a hand on her stomach and winced.

“It has been kind of an intense morning,” Jason said, looking back at the others. “Takeout?”

A murmur of assent went around the room, and they left together.

It took some mental preparation before she could make herself jump up through the lake. Her brain, trying to apply physics to a physically impossible sight, convinced her there was some kind of plexiglass shield there, and she would concuss herself. Again. Zack and Trini went through first, Billy behind them, Jason and Kimberly staying behind to encourage Sam.

“Seriously, just jump. It won’t hurt, and you won’t drown.”

“I hadn’t even considered drowning before, thanks for putting that in my head.” Her jaw was clenched as she looked up, and she was clenching and unclenching her fists.

“It’s okay if you’re scared,” Kimberly said, at the same time she heard her father in the back of her head:  _ don’t be such a pussy _ .

The two thoughts clashed together in her mind, wrestling for dominance. Like she had in the mirror that morning, she tried each of them on, seeing what fit and what didn’t.

“Maybe I’m a little scared,” she admitted quietly. “I mean, come on, it’s a fucking upside-down lake. That’s not normal.”

The admission cost her nothing, she found, and even made her feel  _ less _ afraid, somewhat paradoxically. It was a freeing sensation.

“Here.” Kimberly walked up, taking Sam’s hand in her own. “We’ll go together.”

“…alright.”

With a three-count, they jumped, Sam instinctively drawing in a deep breath as they breached the water. She followed Kimberly’s lead, kicking strongly, and gasped once they were above the surface of the lake.

“Kind of cool,” she admitted, panting. “Still not normal. Also, I need dry clothes.”

“We’ll get you something,” Kimberly promised, laughing.

A quick stop by Kimberly’s house later, Sam had a set of dry clothes. Dry _girl_ clothes, and a bra, all of which felt very odd on a body used to loose shirts and, well. Not bras.

“Sorry it doesn’t fit,” Kimberly said as Sam shifted her shoulderblades for what felt like the thousandth time.

“It’s not that,” Sam told her. “It’s just. Different.”

“I bet.”

They met the others and grabbed their Chinese food to go, finding somewhere they could speak more freely, and more privately.

“So,” Sam said, once they were all settled in a picnic area near the harbor. “We gotta link minds or whatever to see if I can join your druid orgy and counteract Rita’s  _ curse _ .” She didn’t mean to sound as acerbic as she did, but it was hard to discuss any of it with a straight face. Her mind framed it as ridiculous, she figured, to keep the full enormity of it from crashing down on her. Plus, she was  _ really _ hungry.

“That’s the gist of it,” Jason said. The “druid orgy” comment seemed to roll off his back. Sam gave him points for that.

“Not to mention, you know, so we can save the planet again if she ever comes back,” Trini muttered.

“Comes back?” Sam arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you say you slapped her into  _ space _ ?”

“She did survive getting hit with a comet,” Zack pointed out. “And however long she spent in the ocean. I’m not sure how much space is gonna slow her down.”

“She seemed pretty sure she was dying.” Sam paused, idly chewing on the end of her chopstick. Replaying the dream in her head for roughly the four hundredth time since she’d woken up, before physically shaking herself out of it. “So what’d you do last time? When this happened to you?”

“We trained together,” Kimberly said with a shrug. “Which we’ve got to do with you anyway.”

“Got to know each other. The real us,” Jason added quietly.

“Billy died,” Trini said flatly. Everyone turned to stare at her. “What? He did.”

Sam turned her stare on the very much alive Billy. “It’s true,” the boy confirmed. “I don’t know what they talked about while I was dead, but Zordon brought me back.”

“Zordon can  _ reverse death _ ?”

“It was a unique situation,” Kimberly said quickly, shooting Trini a cross look. Trini looked away.

Sam shook her head. “Let’s stick with the other two things you said. Training and talking.”

They did talk, while they ate, introducing themselves past names and faces. Trini participated, somewhat, but remained reticent.

“Tell you what,” Sam said once her noodles were gone and her stomach was sated. “My dad’s out of town until next week. Everybody come to my house one night. Movie night.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d invited people over when her dad wasn’t home, but it was the first time that the general murmurs of agreement seemed to ease a knot in her chest. Like she’d actually been worried they wouldn’t agree to it.

_ What the fuck, you just met them. They jumped you in the woods. They have a robot and a face wall. _

But they were also the only ones who knew what was going on. Who had reacted with reassurance and had a plan, even if it seemed to serve their needs just slightly more than hers. It was action, and she much preferred it to sitting around wringing her fingers.

A smile spread across her face, and with some effort, she resisted the urge to repress it. A full, genuine smile. It felt…odd. Her father had very definite ideas about how boys were supposed to act, how they should comport themselves and which emotions were permissible for others to see. (The list consisted of “anger” and variations thereupon.) But, well. That didn’t really apply anymore, did it?

“You have a really nice smile,” Kimberly said, only sounding a little surprised, and Sam turned to her. An honest-to-god  _ giggle _ escaped her throat.

“Thanks,” she said, another giggling bubbling up as she added: “It’s new.”

That pulled a surprised laugh from Kimberly, and from the corner of her eye Sam saw Trini smiling reluctantly, as the laughter spread around the group.

“We should get going,” Jason said, as it faded. “We can at least get the basics in today.”

Sam stood, stretching, feeling the unfamiliar pull in her pectoral muscles, from the additional weight on her chest, as well as the restriction of the bra.

“You’ll get used to it,” Kimberly promised, seeing the grimace on her face.

“I hope so.”

“Come on,” Jason said, flashing a quick, challenging smile at Sam. “We can start with learning how to run.”

“I know how to run,” Sam protested. “I’m not a  _ complete _ nerd.” Another one of those infuriating looks passed around the group. “I’m going to need y’all to stop that,” Sam said flatly. “I feel like you’re all talking behind my back while in front of me.”

“We’re not,” Jason promised. “It’s just, well.”

Zack gave a wild whoop and launched himself fifty feet in the opposite direction. Sam stared after him, boggle-eyed, only able to still follow him by his laughter; he was completely out of sight after just a few seconds.

“Yeah,” Jason said, with a fondly exasperated sigh. “That.”

It wasn’t _running_ , Sam discovered, so much as it was pushing off the ground _really hard_ and sort of skimming just above it until momentum gave out and you had to push again. There was a learning curve to when you had to put your foot back down, and she ate dirt a couple of times before she got the hang of it.

“Good job,” Billy called when they reached the edge of a massive gorge. “You got that fast!”

“I learn,” Sam replied grimly. “Eventually.”

Zack abruptly executed a standing backflip off the cliff edge, turning it into a pencil-dive halfway down as he plunged into deep, black water. Sam peered over the edge after him, lifting an eyebrow.

“So when do I lose my sense of self preservation?”

“You don’t,” Trini said, sounding disgruntled. “He just never had one.” She followed him off the cliff, foregoing the theatrics, and Sam took a moment to appreciate that Trini had spoken to her without implying the world would be better if she was strung up by the toenails. Progress was progress.

It took a couple of long, deep breaths before she was even able to get up to the edge of the gorge. A couple more before she was able to close her eyes and throw herself off. Screaming laughter, seemingly ripped from her throat by the wind rushing past her, until she splashed into the water.

“That was surprisingly fun,” she panted once they were in the cave together. “Once I got past the ‘oh my god I’m gonna die’ part.”

“That’s pretty much my experience with life in general,” Zack confided with a broad smile.

The “training” was a surprise, too. For one, given the sleek alien metallics of the rest of the ship, she’d expected a kind of Danger Room thing. Not a cave and hard light holograms. (The holograms were at least kind of exciting; she got sidetracked several times talking to Alpha and Billy about them.)

She also hadn’t expected “throw a punch” to be the hardest thing she’d ever tried to learn. Kimberly and Trini’s motions were fluid and natural, but Sam felt like she was simultaneously made of lead and helium balloons. She wondered if it was the change in her physiology, or if she’d have been just as frustrated before she’d found the stone.

_Moot point_ , she thought, with irritation. _I wouldn’t be_ doing _this if I hadn’t found the stone._

“Your form is fine,” Trini said, watching another of Sam’s punches whiff past the holo-putty’s head. “You’re hesitating.”

“Am not,” Sam grunted, stepping into a spinning backfist, which also missed.

“It’ll come more naturally over time,” Kimberly promised. “You just have to get the muscle memory down.”

“I’ll muscle your memory.” That, under her breath, as a quick jab connected with empty air. Trini’s lips quirked a little, but she said nothing, just held up a hand for Sam to pause a moment. 

“Watch.” And she went into a quick series of moves, almost too fast for Sam’s eyes to follow, that ended with the holo-putty dispersed, before a new one took its place. “You gotta be fast. If you hesitate, you’ll miss. It’s like…” She pursed her lips for a moment. “It’s like your muscles will think you don’t  _ want _ to hit, so you won’t.”

“Are my muscles independently sentient now, too? Is that a  _ Power Ranger _ perk I didn’t hear about?” The words were quick and sharp, speaking to Sam’s frustration. It wasn’t even about _ bonding _ or whatever at this point, she just wanted to do the thing to prove she could. It was personal. 

Trini just took a couple of steps back, hands raised in the air in mock surrender. “Fine, have at it.”

Punch. Miss. Punch. Miss. Growling, Sam took a couple of steps back, did a small lap around the cave. From the corner of her eye she saw Jason, leaning down to say something quietly to Alpha. The next time she threw a punch, the holo-putty  _ dodged _ , moving in to shove at Sam’s chest, knocking her to the ground hard.

“Oh,  _ fine _ ,” she called, rolling onto her back. “Now it’s  _ funny _ . Knock the new kid around, make yourselves  _ feel better _ .” She rolled her body, coming up on her feet and delivering a pump kick to the hologram’s torso. It dispersed, and another took its place. “You guys all know how to kill shit, I don’t.” She sank her fist into the new putty’s face. It flickered out. “I just  _ showed up _ , not knowing  _ anything _ , and get  _ kidnapped _ and  _ interrogated _ and you think I’m about to flip out and  _ kill everybody _ because of a  _ rock _ I found in the woods, so you toss me in a pit and make me fight holograms to see how much of a  _ threat _ I am. I get it. I  _ get it _ .” Putty after putty fell as her tirade continued, until she was looking around for the next one that never showed. Panting, sweating, she looked up at where Jason was standing with the others, arms crossed over his chest. He had a small smile on his face, mirrored on each of the others. 

“You don’t hesitate when you’re mad,” Trini said quietly. 

Sam looked down at her hands, at the cave floor in front of her. A smile matching the others’ appeared on her face, growing until she was dancing around the cave, feeling that rush of  _ victory  _ again, but this time no one stopped her from celebrating, from bouncing around and pumping her fists in the air. 

She came down finally, looking around and finding the others watching her with varying degrees of smiles on their faces. 

"Sorry," she said, suddenly sheepish, dropping her hands to her sides.

"Don't you dare," Kimberly said cheerfully. "You're allowed to feel proud of yourself."

"Yeah, well." She looked to the side. “I finally did it.”

"You did," Jason agreed. "But it's getting late, and not all of us have the luxury of not having to answer to our parents tonight." 

"What time is it?" Billy asked suddenly. Jason told him and his face contorted in an expression of irritation and concern as he scrambled for the cave mouth. 

"Let's all get home," Kimberly said. "We can pick this up tomorrow." 

"Sure thing." Sam followed them to the entrance, a little behind, watching the floor as she walked. That had felt...incredible. Not beating the simulation, though that was a pretty cool accomplishment. No, the fact of not having to tamp down excitement, of not having to keep up the facade of aloofness, or worry about being called names or looked at weird, was...freeing. 

"You alright?" Kimberly called down the tunnel, and Sam looked up.

"Yeah, I'm fine." And she jogged to catch up with the others. 


	5. Chapter 5

They trained together like that for a week or more, until they were including Sam in their attempts to devise combination attacks. It mostly involved them falling on their asses in various permutations, laughing until they helped each other up and did it again. 

And then there was exploring the ship, or what was left of it. Sam and Billy listened as Alpha explained how things worked, what wasn’t working and why, explaining what everything  _ used  _ to look like with grand, sweeping gestures. It was fun, though she had to learn to curb some of her blunter comments with Billy. 

              Finally, a night came where they could get away from their families, and they showed up at Sam's house, looking around and trying not to look like they were looking around. 

"Nice place," Jason said. 

"Thanks," Sam said, gesturing around the living room. "I mostly take care of it - dad's out on boats a lot, and when he's not on a boat he's at the harbor..."

"I get you," Jason said, and Sam got the distinct feeling he wasn't just trying to make her feel better. 

"Nice system!" Zack was leaned over the entertainment system, eyeing the various equipment. "You set this up?"

"Yeah, from secondhand parts and stuff." A little swell of pride at that; her dad didn't care much for her computer hobby, but he certainly hadn't complained about the surround sound, or the high-definition displays. 

"This is really cool," Billy said matter-of-factly, joining Zack in exploring the tech. 

"Got a sister?" Kimberly was going through the stack of movies next to the recliner; films Sam had been watching while his dad was away and he could take advantage of the living room's setup. They were, almost to a T, romantic comedies and what would be derisively termed "chick flicks".

"Ah, no." Sam flushed. "Those, uh. Those are mine. From a while ago." 

"Hidden depths," Kim teased, but that was the extent of it, and she felt a wash of relief. She'd had to explain them to her dad as being for watching with girls. He’d complimented her "good technique", which always made her feel a little bitter.

"Well, I brought a blowing-stuff-up movie," Jason said, holding up the case. "Is that okay?"

"Blowing stuff up is cool too," Sam said with a grin, and told them to get started as she ducked into the kitchen to retrieve refreshments. 

Halfway through the movie, Sam looked over to see Trini turned away from the screen, a pillow in her lap. Her face gave nothing away, but her arms were locked so tightly around the pillow Sam was honestly amazed it hadn't burst all over her. 

"Hey," she said quietly, reaching up to touch Trini's leg lightly. She looked down, surprised. "You alright?"

"I might have lost my taste for blowing-stuff-up movies after Goldar," she said tightly. Sam promptly paused the movie, over her stammered protests. "You don't have to - "

"Dude, what kind of host do you think I am?" she asked. "I'm not gonna make you uncomfortable in my own house. We've got all kinds of movies, we can watch literally anything else." 

"Sorry," Jason said from the other end of the sofa. "I didn't think - "

"It's fine," Trini said, though she'd pressed her face into the pillow. "I guess I'm just not. Y'know. Over everything."

Zack moved to her side. Didn't hug her or try to offer explicit comfort, just existed in the same space as her. Trini's shoulders still sagged with relief. Sam found herself floundering, feeling out of her depth. True, she'd grown closer to the others over the past week, but she hadn't been there during Rita's attack. All she had were the witch's final thoughts. So while she could empathize with Trini's fears, she had no idea what to say to alleviate them. 

"Wanna watch the absolute cheesiest romcom I've got?" she asked instead, standing and moving to the stack of cases next to the recliner Kimberly had claimed for her own. "I love it, obviously, but we can still make fun of everything about it."

She looked back at Trini, waggling the case at her. It took a moment, but a small smile appeared on her face. 

"That sounds good."

An hour and a half later, the credits rolled, and they sat in the darkening living room, the remnants of various refreshments surrounding them. 

"It could be worse," Sam was admitting, mostly to the ceiling, as she laid on her back on the floor. "My dad could have been home when this happened."

"I'm working on something for that," Billy said from somewhere to her left. "In case you don't change back."

Sam winced, without really meaning to. She'd been trying not to think about it overly much. 

"I just hope you guys can morph again," she said. 

"We," Kimberly corrected. "Rita was a Ranger, remember? Before she was a creepy sea witch. If we morph, you morph with us."

"Oh, right." Images flashed through Sam's mind, news footage from The Attack, the Rangers running through the city. Tried to imagine a matching suit to theirs, in emerald green. 

Something about it made her roll onto her side, curl up in a ball. 

"Sam?" Zack asked, voice sharp with concern. 

"I'm fine," Sam whispered, only half lying. She closed her eyes. "I think everything just turned real." A deep, shuddery breath. "I only saw news footage of you guys fighting that gold thing before, y'know? I wasn't there. But I see the effect on the town, and on you guys, and there's a chance it could happen again? And now I'm...involved?"

"That's a good word for it," Trini muttered. Her voice was sour, but there was no malice to it, like what had laced every word just a week prior. 

"I just...did not expect this to be my life now."

A rustle of movement and a warm presence near her; Kimberly was sitting with her the way Zack had sat with Trini earlier. 

"You're not alone," was all she said, and Sam felt the words resonate somewhere deep inside her. "Everything is...astoundingly weird, and potentially dangerous, and yeah, all our lives have changed." A cautious hand on her shoulder. "But we're not dealing with it alone. None of us." That, directed over her shoulder, at Trini. A fond-sounding scoff in return.

Sam sat up, rubbing at her eyes. The others, slowly, moved into the floor to sit with the two girls, until they were mirroring their arrangement from the ship. Except they weren't surrounding Sam this time, they were encircling her. Embracing her. 

"I watch too many romance movies," she muttered under her breath. "Sappy shit actually affecting me."

"Geeze, Sam," Zack said, voice light and teasing. "Don't be such a  _ girl _ ."

               They met in the control room the next morning, instead of the caves. Jason stood in front of the console Alpha normally occupied, and they all took up the other positions around the circle. 

"You think we can do this?" Sam asked, trying and mostly failing not to sound nervous. Every other attempt had failed, after all, and Sam was tired of feeling like she was letting the others down. 

"I have a good feeling," Jason reassured her. "Look." 

Sam followed his pointing finger to stare into the morphing grid, the ball of light that represented their connection to each other. Where there had been a dark, staticy dissonance the first time she'd been in the control room, was now a solid, steady glow. True, there were still some nebulous dark patches, but Zordon had assured them that was normal. 

_ "No one's connection is perfect," he said to the assemblage before him, after the third or fourth failed attempt. "If you remember, it took a truly drastic event to bring the five of you together, to begin with." _

_ A look around the group. They still rankled Sam, a little, but she was coming to understand that they weren't to exclude her, some things she just didn't understand that had passed between the group.  _

_ "It will come. And, in fairness, you're not under nearly so much of a time limit as you were last time." _

_ "Says you," Sam muttered. "You're not waiting for my dad to get home." _

            Here and now, Sam cleared her mind, reaching out for the others, for her friends. And into herself, as well, reaching for that part of her that had reacted to Kimberly's words the night before, that had felt warmed and soothed by the connection. By feeling like a part of something larger than herself. 

A wind rose around them, like so many times before. Sam felt the tug at something inside her, like so many times before. But this time, she took that warmth, that feeling of belonging, and fed it into the connection. Felt it spread and split into six, a piece of it going to each of the others. 

And then the world was very bright, and something moved over her. 

"HA!" Sam was bouncing around the control room, punching the air again. Even turned a flip at one point, something Zack had been trying to teach her during training, and that additional accomplishment added to her joy. "I did it! We did it! I look so fucking cool!" She twisted, trying to see every part of the metallic green armor that covered her body. A wordless noise of pure excitement escaped her, and she heard a laugh from somewhere to her left. 

"Something funny, Trini?" A small part of her was on edge now; Trini had never completely defrosted to her, and she was never sure when a cross comment was coming her way.

"I love how happy you get about everything," Trini said, and Sam heard the sincerity in her voice. 

"Trini can't lie while she's in the suit," Zack stage-whispered. Trini kicked him hard in the shin and he jumped away, laughing. 

"You didn't change back," Billy pointed out. Sam looked down, taking in the still-female body she was residing in. 

"My dad comes home tomorrow," she said, mostly to herself. Her joy was draining away again, and he mourned its passing.

"Oh!" Billy took off down the hallway, still in his armor. Sam looked at the others, lifting an eyebrow, receiving only shrugs in response. 

After a moment he returned, brandishing a small device on a circular band. "I made a thing!" he announced. "Alpha helped it. It works like the putty holograms. Uh, you might have to de-morph." 

"...how?" 

The others talked her through releasing the armor. She did so easily; she was sure she could call it back when she needed to. "Alright, Billy, what'd you make me?"

He fastened the device around her wrist, fussing with the band until it fit well. "I'm gonna turn it on. There's gonna be a little shock."

He pressed a button and Sam jumped as every hair on her body stood up. "Jesus, Billy, what's your definition of  _ little _ ?"

"Sorry," he said absently. "Okay, when you're ready, press the red button." 

Sam narrowed her eyes at him, ready for some kind of joy buzzer prank, but dismissed the thought after a moment. Billy wasn't that kind of kid. 

She pressed the button.

“Oh, wow, Billy." Jason thumped the other boy on the shoulder. "Nice work."

"What? What happened?" Sam looked down at herself. Same clothes, same shoes...flat chest. Itch of beard on her face. "Holy shit. How?"

"Hard-light holograms!" Billy said, jumping up and down and clapping his hands. "The shock was it identifying the organic parts, so it ignores your clothes, just masking your actual body. It should get you out the door in the morning, anyway." 

"That is fucking amazing," Sam said, still staring down in awe. After the last week, the appearance was alien to her, and she switched the device off. Her physical form came back into view, and she grinned up at Billy. "Can I hug you?"

"Uh, sure." She wrapped Billy in a tight hug, trying to convey gratitude through the gesture.

"Welcome to the Rangers," Jason said, and on a whim, Sam hugged him too. It turned into a group hug quickly, with Trini shoving Zack away, laughing. 

            That bubbling sort of joy carried her through the cave and out into the woods. This felt good. This felt right. She was happy, moreso than she ever could have applied the word to herself. 

A thought flashed through her mind, and she turned to face the others. 

"I just remembered something."

"What's up?"

"When do I get a giant dinosaur robot?"

A look passed around the group.


End file.
